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A story of love, lies and memory
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My completed novel of literary fiction, Daisychains of Silence has its own site, where you can read the first three chapters, leave a review, link to me or just say hello. |
Sara Lawrence writes in today’s Daily Mail that 2009 has been an amazing year for chick-lit. She says some of it is awful, but a lot of it is magnificent, and that it’s a pity commercial women’s fiction is ignored so resolutely by the literary snobs.
This is a subject that’s been on my mind since first uploading Daisychains of Silence to authonomy. I originally tagged it as chick-lit, though I knew it wasn’t a light, feel-good read – I just thought (because it has a happy ending) it might broadly fit the genre. Fellow writers soon told me it wasn’t really chick lit, and that I should tag it as literary fiction, which I quickly did and it flew up to number twelve – apparently the fastest rising book on on authonomy.
I’m still not sure, athough I know Daisychains appeals to men as well as women because many wonderful reviews have been from male readers. But Daisy’s journey will appeal to women of all ages, and it does end happily. I still wonder if the literary fiction tag is the right one for what is simply a story of a girl coming to terms with a choatic early life. The love of a good man saves her, and she learns to forgive herself along the way – and him, when he has a mid-life wobble. I hope it fits the ‘commercial women’s fiction’ tag, which authonomy doesn’t list as an option.
Certainly, Hilary Johnson’s Advisory Bureau described it as a ’sensitively and intelligently written story’. I would really love an agent or publisher to guide me! Are you out there, listening?
It has cheered and thrilled me to discover fellow authonomist Miranda Dickinson’s first book, Fairy Tale of New York, has flown into the Sunday Times top-ten bestseller list just a few days since hitting the shops.
I remember Miranda Dickinson’s book from authonomy, at that time entitled Coffee at Kowalski’s, and her kind review of Daisychains of Silence was one of many which spurred me on to finish my book.
This is wonderful news, not only for Miranda, but for all debut novelists, and a potent reminder to carry on hoping and dreaming and most of all, writing!
I was up and out early today, and spent a lovely morning in a coffee shop in a nearby village where my sister-in-law had a display of her pretty handmade jewellery. She has a real gift for colour and design, and sources original beads - some handmade, some semi-precious gems - from around the world, cleverly combining them to make striking and original necklaces.
I couldn’t resist such beautiful and unique accessories and came away with three lovely necklaces. I wish I could say they were presents, and that I’ve made a dent in my Christmas shopping list, but that would be wishful thinking. The truth is, I’m not parting with them. I chose them for me and I’m keeping them for myself!
Yesterday I received a polite and friendly letter of rejection from a polite and friendly young man who has recently joined United Artists.
I recognised his name from an earlier correspondence with Harper Collins who’d bought rights to my father’s novel, The Ripening Time – one they’d released in paperback as The Tomato Man. This young man was very helpful and kind to me while I was pursuing copyright issues surrounding the title, as I needed to clarify the position for my revised version of the story, now entitled The Greenhouse Man.
I’m sorry United Artists aren’t going to represent me, but I’m very pleased to see this lovely young man progress in his career, and I’m sure he’ll do brilliantly. I’m going to send him The Tooth Fairy’s Letter and my new uplifting novel about love and adoption when they’re ready – I’m confident they will appeal to a wide readership.
Earlier this year I joined YouWriteOn, a respected peer review site for writers, and added Daisychains of Silence to their slushpile in October under a different title. I hoped for genuine reader responses, without anyone knowing it has been well-received elsewhere. It’s only been a short time and is already close to the top ten, which is fantastic, and enormously reassuring. I’ve often wondered if the book’s rapid rise on authonomy was a fluke.
If it is rated highly enough to enter the top ten chart on YWO it will be reviewed by a professional editor from Random House or Orion. I can’t hurry its progress, though, because the system sends the book to other YouWriteOn members to be reviewed in strict rotation, and it can sit for days in someone’s inbox before they either review it or remove it, and it’s not sent out to anyone else until it’s either reviewed or returned back into the YouWriteOn slushpile.
I’m finding the process a mite frustrating, though. I’ve written twelve reviews of other books, and have received eight (the minimum required to enter the top ten chart.) Another review or two might just nudge Daisychains into the chart, which would be wonderful, but is outside of my control.
Oh dear. I should have learned by now, but I’m finding it impossible to write anything while I’m active on authonomy. And I really want to write!
I’ve failed NaNoWriMo already. Daisychains of Silence is almost inside the top 50 on authonomy - it’s currently at number 53, and I’ve been telling myself that once it’s inside 50 again I’ll be able to get on with writing, happy to leave it there in the window.
However, I know this is an illusion, and that once inside the magic top 50 books, I’ll be compelled to keep it there by reading and commenting on other books. The trouble is I enjoy reading, even on screen, and some of the books I’ve discovered on authonomy are just brilliant. Not only that, the reader reviews are so helpful, it’s hard to walk away from the wonderful feedback from other writers.
I read twenty four chapters of one book today, and the first three chapters of a couple more. All at the expense of writing. And writing is the thing I should be doing. I’ve enjoyed reading all my life, but now I’m meant to be writing. It’s a dilemma, and one I can’t seem to find the solution to.
In the time I was away from authonomy, I managed to finish Daisychains, and sent the manuscript out to several agents and publishers, some of whom asked to see more, which was very encouraging. It hasn’t been taken on yet, but it’s still with a couple of agents, and no news is good news as far as I’m concerned – they haven’t rejected it yet!
I could prattle on about this forever in this blog, but arguing it over with myself gets me nowhere. I’ve made some lovely friends on authonomy, and had some excellent feedback. But the time it takes away from writing, and from life, is something I struggle with daily.
NanoWriMo gave me a head start with my new book, and I’m pleased with the story. Now I need to get on with writing it. In fact, I’m itching to write it! It’s bubbling around in my head, scrabbling at the edges of my mind in its eagerness to get out onto paper.
A new novel in progress for NaNoWriMo. Word count of my book so far: 1,781 words of commercial women’s fiction, maybe even ‘chick-lit’; I’m unsure which genre it fits into, so maybe as it develops, someone will tell me.
Okay - I failed Nano, but this is still a grain of an idea, and comments and opinions are still welcome as I work on it through the coming months.
Chapter One
Evie McArthur swooshed the bubbly water round and round inside an empty Dolmio sauce bottle, thinking how ridiculous it was to be washing up the day’s rubbish. She laid the bottle on the draining board, smiling to herself as she dunked an empty Whiskas tin, pleased to have a good excuse to daydream. She used to love doing the washing up, and she’d missed it.
She remembered the day five years earlier when James had come home with what looked like a party popper wrapped in Selfridges tissue paper and the promise of a dishwasher, compliments of Turner Brothers’ Christmas bonus.
She’d untied the gold string and carefully peeled back the turquoise tissue to reveal a bottle of Revlon Racing Red nail varnish. She’d looked at him across the kitchen table, her eyebrows raised in a question mark and a wry smile on her face.
“Aw, James, what a lovely thought. But have you not seen the state of my hands?”
“Well, that’s the real surprise. I thought we could use the money to buy a dishwasher. Give your hands a rest.”
“Really? Are you sure? I mean, I don’t mind doing the washing up. I quite like it really.”
Evie hadn’t been as thrilled about it as James had hoped. She’d known straight away it would take something special out of her day, but somehow she’d gone along with the idea, and sure enough, it had saved time and the kitchen was tidier as a result. But she’d missed the comforting ritual, the shared moments of banter with their daughter Immy, who’d always grabbed a teatowel without ever needing to be asked. Immy was like that – she liked to join in everything, and was always ready to help.
Evie looked out of the window, saw a robin dip its head into a puddle on top of the black composting bin in the far corner of the garden. She knew it would be heating up inside – she’d given it a good stir yesterday, and its warmth brought the promise of colour and scent to the flower beds, and healthy growth to next year’s vegetables. The funny thing was, since they’d been issued with different coloured bins for different types of rubbish, what had first struck Evie as nonsensical had somehow become her new hobby.
The trouble was she missed Immy. Against all her better instincts, she sometimes wished her daughter was still here to chat to while they shared little rituals like washing and drying the dishes – special moments that brightened up her day.
Evie dried her hands on the tea-towel and bent to pick up Tigger who’d been weaving in and out between her legs, his presence a comfort, his fur clinging to her linen trousers. She didn’t care.
“You miss her too, don’t you, sweetie?” She stroked the old moggie, plonking a kiss on top of his tiger-marked head as she lowered him onto the tiled floor by his food bowl; tried not to think about Imogen wandering round London on her own.
*****
Imogen
The mysteries of the London underground seemed to require a level of intelligence way beyond the brains required to gain entrance to the city’s university, Immy thought. She’d gone round the circle line twice, and was beginning to think she was in some sort of teenage groundhog day. She stood up at Finsbury Park, squeezed past suited elbows and overcoated backs, edging her way toward the platform. She’d get off here regardless. Walk from here or get a bus or something. Anything to feel she might be going somewhere – anywhere rather than round in circles.
Nineteen year-old Imogen was five foot one of hidden loveliness wrapped up in a black donkey jacket. A stripey hand-knitted scarf wound twice round her neck only added to the illusion of girlish vulnerability. A halo of dark curls poking from under her bobble hat completed the picture of someone who wouldn’t look out of place throwing snowballs in Finsbury Park.
She was on the pavement of Richmond Terrace looking up at the Victorian terraced house, studying the doorbells, wondering which one to ring. The advertisement on the college noticeboard had said single bedroom, share kitchen, bathroom and living room with five other students.
This was her second year, and she’d insisted on moving out of halls into her own place. Her mum and dad had tried – no, insisted that they help her move in, but she’d said no. They’d backed off reluctantly, but agreed in the end. Imogen was fiercely independent, and much though she loved her parents, she wanted to do this on her own. Deciding where to live, and with whom, seemed a major step, but unless she did this by herself they would never see her as independent, and more to the point, neither would she.
She unwound her scarf and stuffed it into her holdall, pulled off her hat and gave her flattened hair a bit of a shake. She was about to stretch onto tiptoes to reach the bell when the door opened.
*****
James, 1965
James was adopted. He’d known all his life that he’d been specially chosen. Not like in a shop, where you choose what you want. No, he’d been chosen from the heart, he knew that. His mum and dad had never made a secret of how their hearts had led them to him. He’d been a foundling. An old fashioned, romantic term that belied the truth of having been abandoned.
The truth is, he’d never felt abandoned. Probably because he’d been found only minutes after his birth-mother left him wrapped in a Chelsea Girl duffle coat under the shelter of the Appledore bandstand. James’s parents had been walking hand-in-hand by the river Dore at the end of an unseasonably warm October day. The clocks had just gone back so it was dark at seven o’clock, and the day’s sunshine brought a fine evening mist as the heat rose up from the shadowed hedgerows of the park.
James knows the story well. His mum and dad had been talking about how much they wanted a baby, and how it didn’t seem to be happening naturally. His mum was a nurse, and she knew the likelihood of her ever conceiving naturally was diminishing with every passing year. They’d been married for fifteen years; if she was going to fall pregnant it would have happened by now. They hadn’t yet decided what they were going to do about it when they sat down on the bench at the edge of the bandstand.
“Can you hear that?” His mum said.
“Yes, probably a hedgehog, looking for somewhere to hibernate.” James cocked his head to the snuffling sound.
“But it’s coming from inside the bandstand, love. Surely a hedgehog can’t climb up in there?” His mother rose from the bench as she was speaking. “I’m not being funny, but it sounds like a baby to me.” She looked at her husband, an arm stretched out to James’s dad. “Come with me to have a look. I don’t want to go up on my own.”
James’s dad was on his feet as he took his wife’s hand. “Well, it’s a funny sounding hedgehog, I’ll give you that.”
They walked gingerly up the steps to the bandstand, peered round the corner into the shadows.
James, gurgled at them, as if he knew they were coming for him.
“Oh my! It is a baby.” James’s mother turned to James’s father, a look of astonishment on her face.
“Well, so it is,” James’s father said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I didn’t see anyone, did you?
“Not a soul.”
James’s mum picked up the baby. “He can’t have been here very long, he’s still warm.”
“How do you know it’s a he?”
“I just do.” James’s mum smiled, a bright light from her heart shone on James, and he smiled.
James mum was a nurse, she knew a windy smile from a real smile. There was no doubt in her mind. James smiled up at her, and that was that.
*****
James, 1985
James’s parents were in their sixties when their lovely, soon-to-be daughter-in-law, died. James and Caroline had been childhood sweethearts – Caroline, James’s only girlfriend, and James the love of Caroline’s life. Caroline had been brought up by her father, her mother having died in childbirth.
When they’d announced their engagement on James’s nineteenth birthday neither family saw any reason not to be delighted. Yes, they were young – Caroline was only seventeen, and needed her dad’s permission, but her dad gave his blessing with pleasure. He was glad such a fine young man as James was there to look after his girl. His job was done, there was no reason not to be happy for the young couple. They were clearly made for each other.
The engagement coincided with a positive pregnancy test. It was a shock, probably the result of James’s less than perfected use of the withdrawal method. He was a passionate lover, and these things happened, especially when you were as head-over-heels in love as he was with Caroline. Caroline and James were secretly overjoyed, and announced the engagement to their parents with pride and love bursting from their hearts.
Caroline had a heart condition, unknown and undetected until half way through her labour. Just like her own mother, she died giving birth to a baby girl.
Her father was distraught, as was James. James’s parents were the only ones to hold things together during this dark time. They’d never lost a child, but they knew the agony of life without a longed-for child to share it with.
They put the suggestion to James and together they spoke to Caroline’s father. They were too old to bring up another child, and James wanted his daughter to have a real family, to experience the security and comfort of a mum and a dad’s love.
Caroline’s father reluctantly agreed that the best thing would be to have his daughter’s baby girl adopted by a family who yearned to have a child of their own. He’d struggled to bring up Caroline on his own, and though the rewards far outweighed the sorrows, he knew that Caroline had missed the special bond of a mother’s unconditional love.
James knew it was the right thing to do for his baby daughter. The only thing he could do, under the tragic circumstances. He kissed his lovely baby’s dark curls, and said goodbye, tears coursing down his cheeks. He hadn’t stopped crying since Caroline had died. It seemed to him as if he never would.
*****
When I say bones, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But I have the outline for a novel scribbled on a Post-it note which is more than I had yesterday.
Tomorrow, those of us who’ve signed up will all start writing. NaNoWriMo doesn’t wait for inspiration, I think the idea is that the process of writing fiction with abandon, without thought of editing, will trigger the inspiration at source, the story and characters flying from fingertips onto screen.
I believe the aim is 1,667 words a day to achieve 50,000 words by the end of November. Now I have a story in mind, I’m getting quite excited, and I’ve even got a handful of writing buddies on the site, so we can cheer each other on.
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